IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (links below): Krugman: Is the threat of speculation a reason to shun cap and trade?; Tropical deforestation and its impact on global warming; Colorado Solar Customers Fuming Over Proposed Fee... PLUS: Could algae be the solution for biodiesel?...

Info/links on those stories and all the ones we talked about on today's episode follow below...

More recently, Rinat Gizatullin, a spokesman for the [Russian] Natural Resources Ministry, told the BBC: "We are not panicking. Global warming is not as catastrophic for us as it might be for some other countries. If anything, we'll be even better off. As the climate warms, more of Russia's territory will be freed up for agriculture and industry."

Revealed: the secret evidence of global warming Bush tried to hide --- Photos from US spy satellites declassified by the Obama White House provide the first graphic images of how the polar ice sheets are retreating in the summer. The effects on the world's weather, environments and wildlife could be devastating (The Guardian UK)

As solar activity picks up again in the coming years, the research suggests, temperatures will shoot up at 150% of the rate predicted by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Lean and Rind's research also sheds light on the extreme average temperature in 1998. The paper confirms that the temperature spike that year was caused primarily by a very strong El Niño episode. A future episode could be expected to create a spike of equivalent magnitude on top of an even higher baseline, thus shattering the 1998 record.